Waltz (episode)
Following the destruction of the starship Honshu, Sisko is severely injured and trapped alone on a deserted planet with Dukat, who becomes increasingly unstable. Summary Teaser :"Captain's Log: Stardate 51408.6. I've been aboard the Honshu for two days now and I still haven't spoken to him, although the doctors have assured me that he's made a full recovery. Maybe that's what I'm afraid of. Maybe I prefer to think of him as a crazy man... a broken man. He'd be less dangerous that way. As terrible as it sounds, there's a part of me that wishes he were dead. But that's a thought unworthy of a Starfleet officer. He lost an empire, he lost his daughter, and he nearly lost his mind. Whatever his crimes... isn't that enough punishment for one lifetime?" Just around the corner aboard the , Captain Benjamin Sisko walked down a corridor as he contemplated about the man he was about to visit in the ships brig. Regards toward the reported full mental recovery came to Benjamin's mind. “''Maybe I prefer to think of him as a crazy man... a broken man. He'd be less dangerous that way.” A part of him even admitted to himself that he wished that this man was dead; telling himself this was unworthy of a Starfleet officer. Despite all this, Benjamin reminded himself of the losses this man has suffered. “''He lost an empire, he lost his daughter, and he nearly lost his mind. Whatever his crimes... isn't that enough punishment for one lifetime?'' With all this in mind Benjamin had opened the door, followed by the customary nod of approval by the guard, Benjamin Sisko came face to face with the man inside the brig, Gul Dukat. After some small talk, Dukat engages Benjamin to discuss the matters regarding the appearance he would be making before a special Federation Grand Jury. Benjamin tries to assure Dukat by explaining that in the Federation, he’s innocent till proven guilty. Dukat ask Sisko for his opinion, does he believe he’s guilty or not that leads Benjamin to reluctantly admit he hasn’t seen all the charges. Dukat questions Benjamin's opinion, pointing out that it’s not like him to equivocate. Dukat is informed that he won’t be tried until the end of the Dominion War and that his appearance before the special jury is just a formality. Suspicious, Dukat points out that Benjamin would be testifying for the prosecution. Sisko assures him again, “I’ll tell them everything I know.” Benjamin offers his sympathies over the death of Dukats’ daughter, Tora Ziyal. Even more suspicious Dukat wonders out loud “Do I detect the fine hand of Dr. Cox at work once again?” Benjamin explains he just wanted to offer his condolences, with Dr. Cox permission. Dukat realized Benjamin was sincere about this matter and apologized. Dukat explains that Dr. Cox encouraged him to speak of Ziyal whenever possible, since it was her death that led to his “momentary instability.” Dukat was told they would be arriving at Starbase 621 by noon tomorrow, Benjamin told Dukat he would be seen at the arraignment. On his way out, Dukat thanks Sisko, as well as Major Kira, for caring for Ziyal over the past few years. After a light hearted joke of Dukat when asked by Benjamin if there was anything he could get him, which he replied a bottle of Kanar and an Orion slave girl, the ship shakes and red alert is sounded “Battle Stations!”, the ship was under attack. Act One Major Kira walks out of Captain Sisko's office and informs the rest of the senior staff that the Honshu was destroyed that morning by a wing of Cardassian destroyers. Kira tells them that Starfleet has picked up the distress beacons from three escape pods and one shuttlecraft. She tells them that the only ships searching for survivors will be the ''Defiant'' and the ''Constellation'', because of Dominion activity along the border these two ships were all that could be spared Additionally, the Defiant will only have 52 hours to search as it must leave to guard a troop convoy near the Badlands. Despite objection from the senior staff and how Kira felt, she made it clear that Starfleets order stands. Worf orders an immediate departure, but before he goes, Kira reminds him that there are 30,000 Federation troops on the convoy, and that he has 52 hours to find Captain Sisko and not a second more. Captain Sisko awakens and finds himself lying by a campfire in a cavern, with Dukat helping him up. Dukat tells Benjamin of how they arrived on the planet in the first place. Dukat explains that they were attacked by a wing of Cardassian destroyers which he found ironic. It's been said that Benjamin was heading to Engineering when a plasma conduit exploded before he got 15 meters down the corridor, resulting in plasma burns on the left side of his body. Dukat then tells Sisko that he and Lieutenant McConnell found Benjamin when the order came to abandon ship. When Dukat was asked where was McConnell Dukat reveals he's dead, saying that a piece of sharpnel hit him in the head just as they were carrying Sisko into the shuttle. Benjamin is told that the engines for the shuttle was damaged from the shock waves and it wouldn't be able to reach orbit again. Benjamin was also told that the shuttles distress beacon was repaired and that it was transmitting a standard distress call, neither Federation nor Dominion, which Benjamin agreed was fair. Benjamin finds his broken arm was held together by an improvised cast that Dukat made when he had no real medical knowledge to use the bone regenerator they had. Excusing himself to go search for something edible for them to eat due to only a weeks worth of food rations, Dukat leaves Benjamin by the fire. "What are you planning to do with him?" inquired the Vorta Weyoun, which Dukat replied that he and Sisko had a lot to talk about, which leads to some teasing on Weyoun's part about the days spent in the hospital, screaming until he had to be sedated by the [nurses This leads Dukat to fire in outrage a phaser at Weyoun, which is revealed that Weyoun was never there. Only a rock wall with a smoldering hole in his place. Dukat hasn't recovered. Act Two Memorable Quotes "You and Major Kira took care of her for almost a year. I want to thank you for that it was very generous." "Ziyal was a very special young woman. It was a pleasure to have her with us, even for a short time." "A short time was all she ever had." : - Dukat and Sisko "Behold... Benjamin Sisko: supreme arbiter of right and wrong in the universe." : - Dukat "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" : - Sisko "I should've killed every last one of them! I should've turned their planet into a graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen! I should've killed them all." "And ''that is why you're not an evil man." : - '''Dukat' and Sisko "I'm so glad we had this time together, Benjamin, because we won't be seeing each other for a while. I have unfinished business on Bajor. They thought I was their enemy. They don't know what it is to be my enemy, but they will. From this day forward, Bajor is dead! All of Bajor!! And this time, even their Emissary won't be able to save them!" : - Dukat "Sometimes life seems so complicated, nothing is truly good or truly evil. Everything seems to be a shade of grey. And then you spend some time with a man like Dukat, and you realize that there is such a thing as truly evil." "To realize that is one thing. To do something about it is another. So what are you going to do?" "I'll tell you what I'm not going to do, I'm not going to let him destroy Bajor. I fear no evil. From now on, it's him or me." : - Sisko and Dax Background Information directs Marc Alaimo on the set of "Waltz"]] * This episode sets the stage for the showdown between Sisko and Dukat in the series finale . Indeed, after this episode, they would not see one another again until their confrontation in the fire caves in the finale. * Originally, this episode was to be structured similarly to the third season episode , with the regular crew appearing as different aspects of Dukat's personality. According to Ronald D. Moore, "Waltz" began life as a story we called "Dukat's Head" around the office. The notion was for Sisko to go visit Dukat in the mental hospital and while Sisko was trying to engage the catatonic Cardassian in conversation. We would push in on Dukat's face and then go inside his head and show us the fantasy life he was living. The story would've gone into the past, dealt with his Bajoran mistress, his rise to power, his treatment of the Bajorans and even the fantasy life he was trying to construct for himself on Terok Nor with Kira as his wife and himself as beloved leader of Cardassia and Bajor. We struggled with the storyline for quite a while, but never found a way to make it compelling. Eventually, we noticed that the scenes we liked the best were the ones in the hospital room between Sisko and Dukat and we decided to toss out everything but that. However, some of the character dynamics we had envisioned for the fantasy sequences eventually were realized in the phantom images of Weyoun, Damar, and Kira as they appeared in Dukat's hallucinations." http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/ron78.txt * Of the idea behind doing the episode, Moore explains, "The intention was to dig down and reveal something in Dukat, both to the audience and to the character himself. He really did hate the Bajorans and he really does wish he'd killed them all. That's the dirty little secret he's tried not to confront head-on all these years, and now finally, he's said it out loud and accepted it about himself." http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/ron79.txt * Ira Steven Behr echoes Moore when he says of this episode, "I wanted us to come away from this show with Dukat finally having faced who the hell he is and what he's done. To get him to finally admit that he hates the Bajorans and he wishes to kill them all. And he does. Evil may be an unclear concept in this day and age. But Dukat certainly has done evil things. And since he refuses to admit to them, we then have to simplify things, deconstruct things, until we get to the most simplistic level. Which is: 'He does evil things, therefore, he is evil'." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * By the time this episode aired, the character of Gul Dukat had become exceptionally popular among fans of the show, far more popular than any of the writers had ever intended. This was primarily attributed to Marc Alaimo's superbly charismatic performances as Dukat. Alaimo's portrayal had presented the audience with a character possessed of a very real pathos and sense of humor, a character with many different aspects composing his psychological make-up. The writers however were not entirely happy with how popular Dukat had become. He was supposed to be the villain of the show, and while they were proud to have created such a multi-dimensional villain, they were shocked when they saw fans online actually defending Dukat's behavior during the Occupation. Despite the writers' attempts to make Dukat the epitome of evil in subsequent shows however, his popularity would remain undiminished until the end of the series. Indeed, in relation to "Waltz", some Dukat fans were unhappy with how quickly Sisko denounces him after he tells Sisko about his initial actions as Prefect of Bajor. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * Of the character of Dukat, Moore comments, "Dukat is the hero of his own story. He definitely thinks that he's on the side of the angels, and he doesn't understand why everyone else doesn't see that." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion). Furthermore, he explains, "I don't see anything incompatible in the idea that Dukat wanted to be loved by those he despised. This seems to me like a complex, yet very believable, dynamic. I think you could find many, many instances where a person both loves and hates another person for very complex reasons. Dukat's egotistical need to be loved doesn't seem to be in conflict with his need to dominate and rule. In fact, one could argue that it was the Bajorans' refusal to love him (in his somewhat twisted view of reality) that prompted him to hate them." http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/ron80.txt * Of Marc Alaimo's performance in this episode, director Rene Auberjonois comments, "He was in touch with where it was coming from in his own psychology and where it was going. And that's the way a good actor plays a villain, by finding ways to rationalize what he's doing." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * This episode references an attempt on Dukat's life on Terok Nor within the first month of his administration where someone placed a bomb outside his quarters. This might well be the attempt on the life of Kira Meru as seen in the episode * This episode originally ended with Dukat saying to Sisko, "You too will learn what it's like to lose a child," but the writers abandoned this idea because it was too specific and it locked them into one path in terms of where to next take the character. They also didn't like the prospect of having to work into every single scene involving Jake that he was living his life under a death threat. * Damar and Weyoun appear in this episode only as hallucinations witnessed by Dukat. Indeed, because this episode proved so popular with fans, the writers considered bringing the chorus back for the next episode involving Dukat, but they ultimately abandoned the concept as they felt the technique carried more dramatic weight by being used only once. * The corridors of the are reuses of the Defiant sets; the brig is a reuse of the same set from Voyager. * This is the eighth episode directed by Rene Auberjonois. Of this episode he says, "It was a stage piece, and it dealt with acting, acting, acting all the time. The challenging part was to keep it ''visually interesting''." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * Armin Shimerman (Quark) and Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) do not appear in this episode. Video and DVD releases *UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 6.6, . *As part of the DS9 Season 6 DVD collection. Links and References Guest Stars * Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun * Marc Alaimo as Dukat * Casey Biggs as Damar References Badlands; Bajor; Bajorans; Bajoran Resistance; bone regenerator; brig; Cardassia; Cardassians; Cardassian Central Command; Cardassian destroyer; Cardassian orbital dry dock; cast; ''Constellation'', USS; Cox; Dahkur Province; distress beacon; distress call; Dominion; Emissary; Federation troop convoy; field rations; ''Honshu'', USS; kanar; Kornaire; McConnell; medkit; Occupation of Bajor; Orion slave girl; pepper; plasma; plasma fields; Prefect; Prophets; ration packs; salt; Shakaar government; soup; Starbase 621; Type-6 shuttlecraft; ''Yeager''-type starship; Ziyal, Tora |next= }} Category:DS9 episodes de:Das Gute und das Böse es:Waltz nl:Waltz